Do all J30 have a musky leather smell?

[noktoxic]

Do all J30 have a musky leather smell that stays on your clothes? Just wondering if it is normal or if the previous owner replaced some of the interior with the wrong type of leather.
And it's not a nice leather smell at all

[yodawill2000]

1st Ive heard of that ??
I have a seat cover on the drivers seat but the front passenger and rear seat have no odor at all.
Has your J maybe been through a Flood ?

[noktoxic]

Not that I know of, I've had it for over 5 years and the same smell. I guess the previous owner did replace some of the leather with inferior quality. Smells like watch band I have from the 80's

[wingFeather]

Every one I sat in or test drove had that smell. Musky. The one I bought has it. I figured it was a characteristic of the materials, like the crayon smell in certain BMW's. Perhaps the members who don't notice it are used to it?

[Gerardjg]

My 97 has it the 95 does not

[yodawill2000]

Interesting.
I have a 94.
I wonder if they changed leather in 95/96 ??
I have a acute sense of smell and mine never had any odor at all.

[driverdriver]

This is the first, I've heard of a musky leather smell.

I know '93 and '94 models came with Connolly leather (it says so in my new car sales brochure), the same leather in that era Jaguar, Land Rover and Bentley cam with. In fact it was sourced from the same factory. All 3 of my current vehicles have leather (the Mercedes has synthetic stuff except for the steering wheel and shifter). The Infiniti has the softest and best smelling. The Saab is next with next softest, but the most durable. The best thing about the Mercedes artificial seat leather is that its maintenance free. No need for Lexol or Meguier's leather cleaner or conditioner.

[noktoxic]

So it seems the 95-97 ones come with that musky smelling leather. Sucks to go on a job interview and smell like what Crocodile Dondee probably smells like

[driverdriver]

It's possible. Nissan was in deep financial crisis starting in mid 90's (Renault basically saved Nissan in '99 from bankruptcy). J's sold in the latter years where decontented of items/features/standard equipment and prices dropped to move more units.

[noktoxic]

Well, as far as I know, the 95-97 J30 were by far the best ones made. At least as in reliability goes

[Victor]

I have a 94 J30T and never noticed any bad smell from the leather. In fact I have 202,600 miles on the car and still no rips in the leather, but it is starting to show warn spots on the arm rest and driver's seat.

BTW, I think the 94 J30T was the best J30 ever made because only the 93 and 94 J30Ts came with four wheel steering, but the 94 has a kevlar timing belt which the 93 doesn't have. The 97 was supposed to be the most cheaply made, and it had the lowest MSRP.

Before reading this thread I didn't know the leather quality is worse in the later years.

I was looking at an I30 the other day and noticed they use fake leather in it, or maybe it was very thin leather bonded onto a cloth backing, and the top layer was peeling off.

[driverdriver]

I have to agree. The '93 and '94 cars with HICAS handle like they're on rails with zero body roll and you never feel the weight of the car. I have a C-class coupe while, I'm having some warranty work completed on my Mercedes and not even that car handles the same way as my J30t (although it has more horsepower).

[puck]

I have a 97. The majority of the leather still looks brand new in my J. The drivers seat leather has some worn areas but its not noticeable unless you take a close look. I've never noticed an odor.

[noktoxic]

I was thinking of painting the leather to kill the smell. My J30 is black/black so was thinking of painting the seats and leather inserts on the doors a dark red.

[driverdriver]

Check to make sure what yu currently have is genuine leather. Leather usually needs to be partially bleached and dyed rather then painted. Most fabric stores have kits.